After studying Crane kungfu and seeing how their system is arranged I have often thought that Goju ryu was meant to start with Sanchin, followed by Tensho, with everything else following on from this basis of the Hard/Soft dichotomy expressed in these forms.

However this is the first time I've seen anyone aside from Nathan Johnson make any real use of Tensho, and especially think to derive chi sau/push hands drills which would help develop the student's close quarter skills and work towards bridging the gap between how Gojuka do things and their southern chinese style counterparts.

I'd had it in mind that if I never found anything like this I would develop it myself, glad to see I don't have to.

Gojuka, is this drill as new to you as it is to me, or is it one of those things you just don't see much if you haven't trained Goju for years?

After studying Crane kungfu and seeing how their system is arranged I have often thought that Goju ryu was meant to start with Sanchin, followed by Tensho, with everything else following on from this basis of the Hard/Soft dichotomy expressed in these forms.

However this is the first time I've seen anyone aside from Nathan Johnson make any real use of Tensho, and especially think to derive chi sau/push hands drills which would help develop the student's close quarter skills and work towards bridging the gap between how Gojuka do things and their southern chinese style counterparts.

I'd had it in mind that if I never found anything like this I would develop it myself, glad to see I don't have to.

Gojuka, is this drill as new to you as it is to me, or is it one of those things you just don't see much if you haven't trained Goju for years?

From my studies.

I wouldnt call quite call myself a goju ka, this is one of the reason people have been harping on about studying Okinawan karate, kakie is chi sau .and studying history.

I dont think the drill they are doing are correct.I personaly wouldnt train with them .And I am an absolute complete total begginer in this method.Go back to san chin/ zan chin principles and see what you think.

Goju doesnt start with sanchin. White crane does.

As soon as physical contact is made with the opponent it is called bringing them in to kakie.They have been doing this on Okinawa since the art was created. It was more than likely practiced in other strains of china hand.I think it was. There are elements of it in shoto kan karate kata.

One thing that comes to my mind might be the Okinawans condition their bodies and use the conditioned fist more.

The guys who take the art to what it is meant to be include the basics of ti.

FitnessStrengthMakaiwari in all its different formscondtitioningGrappling

and I would go as far to say ground grappling.

To many people using the ignore button.But I am a student so maybe thats why my comments are sometimes ignored.

I only use one hand kakie drills, to learn push-pull and maintain balance. Key is not strength but use opponents strength to unbalance him. Never done two handed drills as we see on the film.

I do train yakosoku kumite derived from tensho using wrist-locks, schoulder locks, deflections with attacking the elbow joint and deflections attacking with hand slaps or grabbing the groin. These drills can be trained left or right but with real intent to strike or grab or kick. Of course starting comnplient then picking up speed and intent to train with real focus on fighting.Apart from this film I have never seen it in the goju community that I know as 2-handed drill. But then my referential base is not that big.

As for training goju not starting with sanchin. It is true that for kids and adolescents < 14, the sanchin kata is not stressed and more focus is on the gekisai kata. However sanchin kata is the basic training kata for goju-ryu. The order before WWII was sanchin and next tokui kata assigned to you. Order after WWII became gekisai 1, gekisai 2, sanchin, the 8 classical kata (saifa, seiunchin, shishochin, sanseru, sepai, sesan, kururunfa, suparinpei ususally in that order but it does not matter), tensho.My training schedules ussually start with sanchin kata after warm-up and end the training with tensho kata.

I wouldnt call quite call myself a goju ka, this is one of the reason people have been harping on about studying Okinawan karate, kakie is chi sau

It might be a step on the way to chi sau, but it is not chi sau. For a student Jude you do a lot of telling and not a lot of studying.

CVVThe pattern you describe would suggest that a Gojuka is meant to train through the system with the hard Sanchin mindset, and then perhaps retrain with the intention of re-examining the kata and training with a softer Tensho mindset.

That would mean that after geksai brought up basic fitness, co-ordination and balance, the student would develop his internal power and strengthen himself from the inside out through the battle of mind body and breath a la sanchin.This tough "hard work" approach would permeate all training constantly pushing the student into higher realms of physical and mental toughness. Application would concentrate on the basic linear hard elements of the kata and of fighting through drills like kakie and ippon kumite and sparring until Tensho is reached. The student then revisits the classical kata and engages in the longer term study of the complete potential of the movements of each form applying soft circular concepts and developing a base of new skills through two person drills such as chi sau, flow drills and free sparring.

Hey, I think the guy in the video posted a bit earlier in the renzoku thread, he was "ndj" I think. Maybe he should add to this thread, since it's his stuff being discussed, not the way I do things but I thought his drills were nice.

Nathan Johnson is a British Karateka with some wierd ideas about Karate being a zen practice/explicitly for weapons not empty hand etc etc. I think every new idea he gets he writes a book. £££

He has developed a style of Karate which he seems to have settled on, that uses only Sanchin Tensho and Naihanchi kata's. Skills are developed through flow drills and chi sau. It's good stuff from what I've seen, but early on he or his group made the usual "Original true karate" claims.

If NDJ has any comment it would be more than welcome, I applaud him and his school for the progressive approach to developing their art.